Design-Based Research (DBR) is a relatively new intervention method investigating educational designs applied to real-life settings, and with a dual purpose to develop domain theories and to develop the design, iteratively. This paper is an integrative review, which draws on literature and empirical projects to identify and discuss critical elements in DBR, in particular when doing research in online educational projects, where the learning process expands from a traditional classroom to everyday work and life practices, as in competence development projects. Elements from two older, more mature, intervention approaches Interaction Design and Action Research, is included into the DBR discussion, and possible ways to work with the critical incidents are suggested. The paper argues that there is a risk of avoiding real-life factors by isolating the real-life intervention to the actors and actions in the classroom and thus mirroring some of the draw-backs in laboratory experimental research that DBR wanted to distance itself from. The discussion raises issues as users’ needs, resistance, organizational relations, and alternative design solutions. Also, this type of online and competence development processes needs new empirical methods, and an argument for rigour in the DBR analysis and theory generation phases is presented.